


First Sail (Nicko Heap One-Shot)

by overstrand_marcia_i



Category: Septimus Heap - Angie Sage
Genre: Magyk, Nicko Heap - Freeform, One Shot, Other, Septimus Heap - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-04 23:49:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14031546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overstrand_marcia_i/pseuds/overstrand_marcia_i
Summary: Nicko goes on his first ever sailing adventure!





	First Sail (Nicko Heap One-Shot)

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I do not own or claim any relation to the Septimus Heap franchise. All canon characters are credited to Angie Sage. This is simply fancontent, created for other fans.

**First Sail:**

Nicko Heap One-Shot Fic

 

_The first time Nicko set foot on a sailboat he felt more at home than he ever had on land._

\-------

     He was eight years old and his class in the Ramblings had booked a field trip on a little schooner that was to take them around the moat. Supposedly, it was an educational history tour, but everyone knew that it was likely to be the least educational thing they did all year. 

     But even as they walked through the boatyard to the docks, little Nicko Heap pushed his curly hair out of his eyes and gazed around in wonder. He had never,  _never_ seen  _so many_  pretty boats in one place. Several times he had to run to catch up with the group, having gotten distracted by all the cool things lying around the boatyard.

     “Hey! What’s that? What’s _that?_ Hey, that’s  _cool!_  What’s that?” Nicko kept asking his teacher as the children were guided up the gangplank and into the cockpit of the boat. 

     One of the four crewmen on board chuckled softly at his questions and excitement about everything and turned to him. “What’s your name, kid?” he asked in a friendly voice.

     “Nicko Heap!” Nicko stated proudly, “Can you tell me what all this cool stuff is? Please? How can the boat go? I wanna know how it works! Please?” his voice was high-pitched and somewhat squeaky with excitement, and he practically bounced with eager enthusiasm.

     The crewman smiled, happy to share.  _Most kids that came on the boat were bored out of their minds and it was really refreshing,_  he thought,  _to see someone with this much brand-new enthusiasm for sailing._

  “Sure, Nicko. My name’s Deake,” he said to Nicko, who nodded and grinned. “What do you wanna learn?”

    Nicko’s eyes, which were just starting to change color to match the bright Wizard’s green of his parents, shone. “I wanna learn to sail!”

     Deake smiled back at him, amazed at how interested this kid was–more than most adults who worked at the boatyard, which in it of itself was entertaining. “Well sure. I guess I can try and show you some stuff today. Just don’t blame me for not paying attention to the history lesson, ‘kay? To be honest, it’s kinda boring, Nicko.”

     Nicko nodded and giggled. “’S’okay. Sailing is way cooler than some dumb history lesson anyway.”

     “Right. Totally agree, kid. Well, the first thing any good sailor needs to know is his knots. There are hundreds of knots, but to sail effectively, you really only need a couple: a stopper knot like a figure-eight or a barrel knot, a square knot, a hitch of some kind, and a bowline,” he paused for a second, pulling a thin, long scrap of line out of his pocket. “Those are the really important ones that you’ve gotta be able to tie in a hurry, so they teach you those first.”

     Nicko watched him tie knot after knot with complete fascination, laughing at Deake’s side commentary about the stupidity of figure-eight knots and the barrel knot’s superiority to them. 

\-------

     It was hardly ten minutes later that Nicko had mastered the short list of knots Deake had taught him. It was obvious to Deake that Nicko was a natural at this “boat stuff,” as he so eloquently put it.

     “Why do you move the sails back and forth? Does it make the boat go faster?” Nicko asked, hands still occupied with tying and untying a clove hitch.

     “Good question, Nicko,” Deake smiled at him, glad he was still interested in what he had to say. “When we are turning the boat, that is to say, tacking or gybing, the bow or the stern respectively passes through where the wind is coming from. That is often called ‘irons’ or ‘the eye of the wind.’ After that, the sails switch to the other side and from there we can pull them in or let them out.”

     “What’s the difference between a tack and a gybe, Deake? That’s so cool; I wanna learn how to do that stuff!” Nicko gazed around him, trying to take in and memorize every tiny detail of the boat.

     Deake coughed slightly and swung his feet over the side so they were dangling over the side of the boat and Nicko eagerly joined him, gazing out at the wind on the water with shining, excited eyes. 

     “Well, a tack, you see is when the front of your boat, that’s the bow, passes through the eye of the wind. And a gybe is sort of the opposite: it’s when the stern of your boat, that’s the back, passes through irons, yeah? Does that make sense?”

     Nicko nodded slowly. “Yeah, I think so, What about right and left on a boat? Don’t they have different names?”

     Deake nodded back at him. “Right you are, Nicko. They sure do. The proper word for right is ‘starboard’ and the word for left is ‘port.’ The way I always remember it is that port and left both have four letters and they mean the same.”

     “Yeah! I get it! That makes sense. What about-”

     All of a sudden, he was cut off by the biting voice of his history teacher. “Nicko! You get back here and sit with the rest of class like you’re supposed to. That kind of behavior is completely unacceptable. You need to pay better attention!”

     Nicko slid guiltily into his seat, still clutching the line tightly in his fist. Deake had also moved to adjust a halyard on the mast. He shot Nicko an apologetic look.  _I’m sorry,_ he mouthed silently.

      _It’s okay,_ Nicko mouthed back. His teacher started droning on about long-dead Queens again and Nicko rolled his eyes.  _Whatever,_ he thought to himself,  _he’d never need to know about royalty anyway. His family was about as far from it as one could hope to get,_ he concluded.

\-------

     The boat ride ended about half an hour later. As Nicko walked to the gangplank, he tried to hand the little piece of line back to Deake, who just shook his head. “Keep it Nicko. And here’s some advice: don’t let your teacher keep you from learning what you love.”

     Nicko smiled back at him. 

     “See you around, kid. Maybe one day you’ll sail one of these ships and I’ll wave from shore.”

\-------

_From that day forward, Nicko knew that he wanted to sail again._


End file.
